Thursday, July 26, 2012

It's been years in the making, but the new iteration of jenniferworick.com is live. It's the hub for all things me: my latest books and aritcles, upcoming events, and press. And I'll be moving my "word" blogging there in an attempt to wrangle my writing in a centralized location.

This week was my turn to pose a question. So I asked: What is the one thing in life that you still most want to do?

In other words, what’s the number-one thing on your bucket list? I’m not a fan of the term “bucket list,” but I recently recorded a podcast
with Matt Paxton, the breakout clutter cleaner on Hoarders. We got to
talking about a random assortment of topics, the way the best late-night
chats tend to, and touched on bucket lists.

Now, I’ve posted about bucket lists on my blog, Things I Want to Punch in the Face,
so you can probably imagine I’m not the biggest fan of them. However,
it did get me thinking about the thing or things I’d regret not doing if
I were to croak tomorrow.

My immediate answer was travel. I’m in my forties but I haven’t
gotten out of North America much. I’ve been to England and France, but
those trips to Greece, Italy, Thailand, Egypt, Mauritius remain on my
“to do” list and never seem to materialize. My excuses are run of the
mill: I can’t afford it or I can’t afford to take the time.

Bullshit.

But beyond eating, praying, and loving my way around the globe,
what I’d really regret is not finishing my memoir. It seems as if I’ve
been working on and off on this for years and in fact, I recently found
some writing from my early twenties that touched on this. So we’re
talking 20 years I’ve been skirting and sniffing around this project
without diving in and finishing it. Oh, I’ve worked on it. But again,
money and time seem to rear their ugly heads. It’s hard to create a
schedule that gives this room to breathe and develop and take shape. And
I do need time for it. It’s much more emotionally demanding that
anything I’ve ever done, writing or otherwise. It takes me to a dark
place that’s hard to stay in when there are bills to be paid and life to
be lived. So I’m moving back into a place where I can and will write
something—anything—for the book each day. I may not be traveling soon
but I am moving forward.